Victoria Scott
Series:
Genres: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult The Collector
(Dante Walker #1)
by Victoria Scott
He makes good girls…bad.
Dante Walker is flippin’ awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of hell’s best—a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big red good or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag.
Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante’s an equal-opportunity collector and doesn’t want it any other way. But he’ll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment:
Collect Charlie Cooper’s soul within ten days.
Dante doesn’t know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that’s a permanent ticket out of hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he’s come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector…and uncover emotions deeply buried
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REVIEW
Oh, Dante Walker, you smexy sonofabitch, you! You’re everything girls want in a man, and everything we despise at the same time.
This year I’m definitely into character voice as the number one thing that draws me into loving a book versus liking it. Dante had a fabulous character voice. I thoroughly enjoyed reading him, he’s bad, he’s good, he’s funny, he’s so many things.
A++++ for the character development of Dante.
Dante works for Boss Man, AKA The Devil. His job is to collect souls before people die so they never get a chance to stand for Final Judgment. It’s a clever spin on the whole soul collector theme, which has been done before. (Quite a bit actually.)
Dante loves his job and up until now, he’s had no problem with collecting all the souls he can. Problem is, this nerdy chick named Charlie sorta weasels her way into his heart.
Charlie is a total dweeb and she’s got absolutely nothing going for her except her good deeds and high moral character. And even though we’re supposed to like that about her, I found Charlie to be annoyingly sweet.
She wanted to make me puke. In fact, I sorta hated Charlie. I do understand Dante’s attraction to her, and I was OK with that, but I never felt the same way about her.
Annabelle, on the other hand, LOVED! I wish Annabelle was the main love interest because she was well-developed, quirky, and likeable.
I’m going to reserve final judgment on Charlie until after the next book. I see the moral of the story, it’s practically spelled out for readers, but I’m not quite sure it succeeded. Charlie still got what she wanted and Dante’s mission is to make sure she doesn’t have to pay the final price for that coolness.
I’m not sure that works…right? I mean, how does that work?
This story was fun though, and it kept my attention. It got a little predictable towards the end, and there a huge reveal about Dante’s past that had almost no follow-up, so I think that could’ve been handled better, but I have every intention of picking up the second book, so mission accomplished for author Victoria Scott.
Four stars.
About Victoria Scott
Victoria Scott is a teen fiction writer represented by Sara Crowe. She’s the author of THE COLLECTOR trilogy (Entangled Teen) and the FIRE & FLOOD series (Scholastic). Victoria lives in Dallas with her husband and hearts cotton candy something fierce.
Bookworm Brandee
The Collector is one I’ve been looking forward to reading. And then it’s released and I haven’t had time to read it! 😉 I’m glad you liked it and hopefully I’ll get to it soon. I really can’t wait to meet Dante! I like strong character voice and development too.
J. Anne Huss
He was fun, Brandee!
Danny
Oh no you didn’t like Charlie? I hope you’ll like more in the next book. I loved her because she was so unusal..
But of course, I mainly loved Dante!
Aman
I wasn’t really a Charlie fan either. It felt liek I was supposed to pity over her or something. She was too sweet and I wish that changes in the next book. Though I LOVED Dante! He was a jerk in the beginning but I loved his transformation and I’m dying to know more about him.
Ashley Montgomery
I’ve so gotta read this book soon. Everyone seems to be in love with Dante and I’ve heard so many great things about it but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Hopefully soon though.
J. Anne Huss
I have to admit, I liked the jerky Dante! 😛 I bet charlie has a new side to her in the next book, so I’m holding off on hating her for real.